Is your weed tolerance at the top of the charts right now? You might be looking for something stronger now. That’s where kief comes in as your savior.
But what is kief? How does it compare to cannabis, and how do you use it? Keep reading to get the answers to all your questions.
What Is Kief?
Kief is a concentrated cannabis form with a high potency. It may look like a powder to you, but it contains small pieces of crystallized and sticky resin.
So, where does it come from?
When a cannabis plant matures, it forms resinous glands on its buds. These are called trichomes and contain terpenes, CBD, THC, and other compounds responsible for the plant’s psychoactive effects.
Trichomes appear to be like small salt or sugar crystals. But when they fall off the plant, they turn into kief. But you don’t necessarily have to go out in the wild to look for kief. It also collects at the bottom of grinders and jars for storing the cannabis flower.
Due to oxidation, kief isn’t as fresh as the other plant buds. It’s also darker than trichomes and may be anywhere from a light golden color to dark brown. You can use kief in many ways, such as smoking or ingesting it. If you’ve got enough of this powder in your grinder, you can also press it into hash.
If you haven’t got any kief at home, you can get it from a retail store or dispensary. The higher the potency and purity of kief, the lighter its color will be. The best varieties are often off-white or yellow. If the kief looks green, it may still have plant matter.
Collecting Kief With a Screen
Did you know you can collect kief at home by rubbing cannabis flowers onto a silk screen? If you don’t have one, you can get it from any cannabis retail store. The screens are available in different sizes, from 75 to 120 microns.
Get a couple of screens of different sizes for the best results. Put these screens together, with the largest mesh size at the beginning.
Then, take a fresh cannabis flower and rub it over the screens. The kief will fall through the larger mesh size but should be caught in the smaller one ahead of it.
After the last screen, refine the powder by removing plant material that has made it through the screens.
Three Ways to Use Kief
As mentioned earlier, there are several ways to use kief. We discuss three of them.
1. Smoking Kief
Since kief has a higher potency than marijuana buds, you should not use the same amount as you would of cannabis material. Instead, take a smaller amount when rolling a kief joint.
A kief smoke will keep burning until it’s all out. So, even if you get distracted after a while, it will keep burning on.
You can also smoke kief through a smoking implement, like a bong or pipe. To do this, put some buds into the bong and sprinkle a light layer of kief over them.
If you don’t want the kief to burn up so quickly, ‘corner’ the bowl. That’s weed code for lighting the edge of the pipe or one quadrant rather than the whole surface.
Not a huge fan of the bong? No worries. You can smoke kief by lining a joint with it.
Simply sprinkle a thin line of kief inside the joint paper and roll it up like you would with a flower. When it’s lit, the kief will burn smoothly. Or, you can put kief and ground tobacco in a spliff if you roll that way.
2. Ingesting Kief
You’re not the only one if the smoke gets to your head. In this case, the alternative method for using kief is to ingest it. Here are some methods:
Morning Coffee
Caffeine alone isn’t cutting it for you? Sprinkle some kief into your morning tea or coffee. Use a small amount, like 1/4th of a gram.
While kief itself is pretty strong, the heat also activates the cannabinoids in the powder, allowing you to experience a high effect about half an hour after you’ve chugged down your morning cuppa.
Kief Butter
Whether you like to make weed brownies or simply enjoy butter on toast in the morning, kief butter can be a great way to get your daily dose.
Before you use the kief for making butter, you must decarboxylate it. For this, put the kief in a preheated oven of 300 °F (149 °C) for 7 minutes. Doing so will activate THC in kief.
After taking the kief-containing oven-safe dish out of the oven, let it cool for a while. Then, do the following:
- Melt two sticks of butter in a saucepan over low heat.
- Once it’s melted, add a gram of the decarboxylated kief and stir to combine.
- Simmer this for some time.
- Pour the butter into a heat-safe dish using a spatula.
- Let it cool to solidify. You can use this butter for two months.
Don’t want to go through all this trouble? Then, the easiest way to ingest kief is to sprinkle it on any food of your liking after you’re done cooking. For example, you can use it as a salad dressing or sprinkle it on your pasta.
3. Pressing Into Hash
You’ll need an iron for this. Start by heating your iron to its lowest setting. If you don’t have an iron, use a hair straightener.
Put a 1-foot folded piece of parchment paper on your ironing board. Then, put kief inside the fold, layering it up to 1/4 inch. Instead of concentrating the kief toward the edge, add it to the fold.
Fold the parchment paper over the kief. Put a buffer on top of it, such as a damp newspaper or a t-shirt, to protect it from burning.
Then, iron the paper using firm pressure. Iron at three-second intervals 20 times. Keep changing the side of the buffer with every interval.
When the hash loses its stickiness and becomes compact, it’s ready for use. Smoke it as you like, or use it as your next meal’s seasoning.
Conclusion
And there you have it; three ways to use kief and get an other-worldly high. Do note that the potency of kief will also depend on the strain. Also, don’t forget to store your kief properly so it won’t degrade in quality over time. Enjoy!
